Barack Obama has finished his speech and all of the Democrats at Mile High Stadium are now celebrating and an emotional and inspiring arrrangement of music is playing in the background like a score accentuating the climax of a major Hollywood blockbuster.

I’m sure for many, it was a very inspirational speech … full of a lot of ambitious plans and lofty ideals. Personally, I admire ambitious plans and lofty ideals.

Anyone who has followed political campaigns for a few cycles, let alone half a decade, have heard it all before.

Change. Change. Change.

I’ve been listening to that mantra for the past 50 years beginning with the JFK that Obama alluded to. Sometimes it’s worked and sometimes it hasn’t as far as winning a political election.

Barack Obama is simply one more JFK, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton. He’s also another George McGovern, Michael Dukakis, Al Gore or John Kerry.

Win or loose, they all have the same message … change, change change. And what do we get? More of the same, same same.

All a person simply needs to do is look at who is in Congress … Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Dick Durbin, Ted Kennedy … the very same people who, after promising the most unified and cooperative Congress in the history of the United States, wound up giving us one of the most divisive, vindictive and unpopular Congresses in the history of the United States … one which Barack Obama was part of … consistently towing the Democratic Party line … more consistently than any other Democrat currently in Congress.

I suppose what struck me the most about Obama’s speech, other than it’s typically inspiring rhetoric, was it’s consistent and absolute hypocrisy.

Accuse McCain of doing nothing about renewable energy for his 30 years in Congress? What about Biden’s 35 years of doing nothing … as well as Ted Kennedy’s, Harry Reid’s, Dick Durbin’s … all of these senior senators that are going to kick him around like a beach ball just as John Kennedy was by the senior Democratic senators did during Kennedy’s administration. And Barack Obama is more “junior” than Kennedy was.

Education, energy, defense,reducing bureacracy, natural disasters, and on and on … ad infinitum. It’s a great shoppng list. Too bad it’s an old one that been presented time and time again by men more capable than Barack Obama.

Obama attacks lobbyists … but simply look a the who’s who list of Democratic rats that cautiously waited to see who was ahead or who it looked like was going to win before jumping on his band wagon … or look at the even more dispicable list of political cronies who either bailed on or betrayed Hillary and Bill Clinton to grab a brass ring on the winning ticket. Those are the real lobbyists who have their own strings of “registered” lobbyists who will perpetuate the system in Washington.

Barack Obama isn’t going to change that. If any of these people actually thought he would, Obama would be a distant memory known as another failed “also ran”.

While Howard Wolfson is now talking about the “meat and potatoes” in Obama’s speech, I’m sitting here wondering … “What meat and potatoes???”

I have sat here and intently listened to a generic, generalization of a laundry list which is, at least, nearly as old as I am.

What’s new????

Where is the change????

“Barack, if you want change, then ask all of those Democratic voters you have gathered there in Denver to vote out all of those old democratic cronies that have been clinging to your coat tails for what seems like eternity. Shake them off and make a real change.”

“And get rid of that David Axelrod. It’s hard for people to take your cry of, “Foul.” seriously when the hypocrisy of your doing the same thing … and frequently first … is dirtying the water. That boat just doesn’t float with anyone who has half a brain.”

If you’re under 10 years old, then this is a new and inspiring speech. If you’re older than 10, then you just haven’t been paying attention for the past however many years.

Even the venue is reminescent of events that took place around 70 years ago. And that’s a little creepy.

There you are at Mile High Stadium in Denver, Colorado. Out in the middle of the field is … what?

Okay. The Democrats are getting a little sensitive about this.

Their retort to all the criticism they’ve been getting about this grandiose stage is, “The important thing is the speech, not the setting that it’s given in or on.”

If that’s so, why not stay at the convention center instead of moving to a football stadium?

“Well, we want it to be open to more people than the convention delegates.”

Okay. 75,000 isn’t everyone so why try? Don’t you recall that 200,000 adulating Germans looked a little like pre-World War II Nuremberg? All you have to do is replace the term, “fascist” with “socialist”.

And what’s with all of those columns? Are they Doric, Ionian, or Corinthian? You say the back drop is based on the Lincoln Memorial. Frankly, it reminds me of a movie set from “QuoVadis”, “Ben Hur “, “Fall of the Roman Empire” or “Gladiator”.

And what’s with all of those steps leading up to that round area at the end of the runway? Is that what’s supposed to get Barack “closer” to the “common man”? Are they going to have people or even better a bunch of small children sitting on the steps so it will look like the “Sermon on the Mount”?

I think that’s what they’re shooting for … some kind of hybrid between “Imperial Rome” and the “Sermon on the Mount”. Interesting.

After listening to the re-run on C-Span of Senator Harry Reid’s speech at the Democratic National Convention presented on Wednesday evening, I was glad that I missed the original presentation since I was preparing and eating my supper. There’s something about Harry Reid that seems to always slightly nauseate me and seeing his speech before supper would have spoiled my appetite.

Listening to Harry Reid mention snake oil convinced me that he was certainly an expert on the subject.

While he was describing the traits of a presidential administration, I could have sworn he was referring to Lyndon Johnson instead of George Bush. His description of the administration was certainly more characteristic of and consistent with Johnson’s.

When Reid chided the Republicans for ridiculing Jimmy Carter alternative energy initiatives, I couldn’t fail to wonder why, if the ideas were considered so great at the time, that a Democratic president couldn’t get a Democratically controlled Congress to go along with his ideas. There must have been more of a problem than the Republicans.

Harry Reid apparently considers oil some sort of demon. He’s quick to point out that any current oil drilling will take 10 years to be productive, a point, by the way which isn’t exactly correct when people who are familiar with oil drilling are asked about the prospects. The fact that he and Boone Pickens keep pointing to regarding the United States having only 3% of the world’s known oil reserves are based on relatively old data, may not take into account discovery of large deposits of oil in deeper parts of the Gulf of Mexico late last summer and completely disregard the fact that Congress has prohibited exploration to seek out new oil deposits in many parts of the Gulf and in nearly all of the areas of the eastern and western continental shelves. In other words, while numerous new deposits of oil have been discovered in many parts of the world in the past 10 years, oil companies have been prohibited from doing the same exploration and development in American controlled waters. New oil deposits have been discovered in Indonesia and Brazil in the past 10 years helping those countries to become energy independent and to develop their economies while the United States has been limited to importing increasing amounts of oil.

While France has been safely using nuclear energy for the past 50 plus years, a Democratically controlled congress has prohibited the United States from building new nuclear reactors for nearly 30 years.

Harry Reid ridicules the prospect of producing more oil because he says it will take 10 years. How long will it take to develop and implement an alternative energy source consisting of wind and solar power? He fails to mention that those prospects are 12 to 22 years in the future. In a recent presentation before a Congressional committee an expert on offshore wind development stated it would take 5 to 7 years for the technology to be perfected. And that estimate didn’t include the time it would take to implement the technology once it had been developed. It’s understandable that the Democratic leadership might be unaware of these facts since no Democrats even attended the hearing.

Harry Reid’s speech amounted to a lot of hot air and political posturing based of questionably lofty ideals with no substance. He ridicules any attempt to try to achieve any form of energy independence through developing any oil resources we may have by discounting it stating that any increase in domestic oil supplies would take 10 years. Yet he doesn’t explain what the American people are supposed to do in the intervening 12 to 22 years while solar and wind power are being developed.

Harry Reid talks of energy conservation. Where are the examples from the Democratic leadership … or do they believe in leading by example? And where is the explanation of what the American people are supposed to do while waiting to be delivered from Harry’s Demon? Where are all of those electric cars and the cars that get 40 miles per gallon that the Democrats keep alluding to? Are they going to spontaneously appear once Obama becomes president?

One thing became obvious after listening to Harry Reid. It really doesn’t matter whether Nancy Pelosi has given an indication that offshore drilling might be a possibility … because Harry Reid hasn’t. Pelosi can play all of the politics she wants by letting it leak that she has given permission for Democratic Congressmen up for re-election to tell their constituents that they’re in favor of offshore drilling. Pelosi says, “Tell your constituents anything it takes to get re-elected.”

After watching AARP’s heart wrenching ad about families finding out that their health insurance doesn’t cover various medical problems, the hypocrisy is becoming intolerable.

While showing these ads, AARP is offering a endorsed health insurance supplement to its members by United Healthcare , a health insurance company which is probably the most notorious in this country for “denial of service”, that is, refusing legitimate claims submitted by people who have health insurance with that company. United Healthcare has probably been sued by more entities than any other health insurance company because of their refusal to pay claims, their ability to ignore claims or seruptitiously delaying payments beyond any reasonable expectations.

Joe Biden began his speech tonight by recognizing his family. There were several times I actually thought he was going to cry.

Without going into all of the details of Biden’s speech, it became apparent how the Democrats are going to attack John McCain, none of which was much of a surprise.

Joe did complain about “Washington” doing nothing to help average Americans … something interesting coming from someone who has been in Washington since the early 1970’s. A number of the current American problems he attributed to the Bush administration actually have their origins during the Clinton administration … things like globalization and job outsourcing.

Joe Biden did try to add some meat to Barack Obama’s resume but it wound up being as skinny as Obama is.

It continues to amaze me how much is forgotten or is left unsaid for the sake of political expediency.

Barack Obama showed up as a “surprise” guest at the end of Biden’s speech. Barack Obama made an open invitation for “everyone” to attend his acceptance speech at Mile High Stadium on Thursday … to open up the process to “all Americans”. I suppose the previously announced “dues paying process” has been dropped. Do you reckon? Let’s all go to Denver and find out. Right.

After a rousing and protracted round of applause, Bill Clinton gave an enthusiastic endorsement for Barack Obama apparently laying aside all of the animosity that attracted so much attention during the Democratic primary campaigns. In doing so, Bill Clinton requested that the nation return to the prosperity of the 1990’s under the Clinton administration.

One of his last points was that like he, Bill Clinton, in 1992 was young and accused of being too young and inexperienced to be president, Barack Obama is also being accused of being too young and inexperienced to be president. Clinton claimed that, as his presidency was successful, Obama’s presidency will also be successful.

Bill Clinton did leave out any reference to John Kennedy who was also a very young president.

What Clinton also failed to point out were the differences in the world situation today compared to the beginning of his presidency, situations like the current Iraq War, the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan and the resurgence of Russia as a threat to peace and stability in Europe, problems and threats that Bill Clinton didn’t have to face. A young and relatively inexperienced John F. Kennedy did have similar problems and his inexperience was exhibited by an ineffective meeting with Nikita Khrushchev, resulting in the construction of the Berlin Wall, the Cuban Missile Crisis which nearly led to World War III and the guarantee of Cuba remaining a communist state by selling out the Cuban exiles in the United States and elsewhere. Clinton, in contrast, was inaugurated president in a time of relative peace. The immediate threat created by Iraq following its unprovoked invasion of Kuwait had been eliminated by the first Iraq War under the Bush administration and the Soviet Union had already been dissolved through the efforts of Ronald Reagan. Neither did Clinton mention his failed policy and withdrawal from Somalia, his failure to neutralize bin Laden when an opportunity arose, his failure to recognize the Al Quaeda threat that existed after the first bombing of the World Trade Center which led to the 9/11/2001 attack on the World Trade Center or his failed negotiations with North Korea, to name a few. He also failed to mention it was his policy and administration which began the process of globilization or the American economy which, as claimed by many, has led to the loss of many high paying American jobs manufacturing jobs as well as jobs in the technology sector. During his administration the process of outsourcing of jobs to foreign countries began in full force.

Clinton did take credit for a period of prosperity during the 1990’s. He failed to mention that the economy was already recovering from a mild downturn in economic growth in the first part of the 1990’s prior to his inauguaration nor did he mention that many of his expensive and socialistic plans were curbed by the election of a Republican controlled Congress two years after his election which led to the moderation of many of his policies and plans.

Clinton stated that Barack Obama would be a staunch defender and supporter of the Constitution failing to recognizie Obama’s equivocation of the Second Amendment and his ardent support for a judiciary which is prone to legislate from the bench and not follow the Constitution, effectively bypassing the elected legislative branch of government.

Clinton attacked to Bush administration for “cronyism” following the Katrina disaster in New Orleans several years ago, again failing to admit to the political cronyism exhibited by the then Democratic governor of Louisiana and the re-elected Democratic mayor of New Orleans resulting in billions of dollars of waste and fraud in Lousiana following Katrina. He also failed to mention that the citizens of Louisiana have since partially corrected that problem by electing a Republican governor for that state.

He did mention that Barack Obama has the background to deal with the changing population of the United States and the growing interdependence of the United States with the rest of the world. I suppose he was referring to Obama’s suggestion that all Americans should learn Spanish and that Obama with his history of multiculturalism would be more inclined to help Americans adjust to a position of more dependence on the rest of the world rather than achieving a degree of independence and security from world threats.

I suppose like those politicians of old, like the one that I heard many years ago,Once Upon a Time at a County Democratic Party Meeting …,Bill Clinton is one of those who put party first over all else. Bill Clinton is a great speaker. Everyone knows that the true sign of a great speaker is their ability to inspire as much by what they conveniently fail to say as what they actually do say.